whoremaster/whore-master

[Jonathan Lighter]

So far as I can tell the 1508 sense has never died out. The HDAS files contain exx. throughout most of the 20th C. and a few from the 19th.

  JL

Sarah Lang <slang at UCHICAGO.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Sarah Lang
Subject: Re: whoremaster/whore-master
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Yes, I had read the entry, but I had never heard or seen it used in
that sense until the film--only in the 1864 sense. But interestingly,
the movie was set in Queens--within a blue-collar family--so
Turturro's use makes sense (I knew I should have asked him!).

But are there any modern or current bibliographic citations of that
sense? Has the 1508 sense never died out, or when and where did it
resurface?

S.

On Dec 14, 2007, at 9:20 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: whoremaster/whore-master
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> OED:
>
> = whoremonger, 1508.
>
> = procurer or pimp, 1864.
>
>
> I've heard the term used in conversation probably less than a
> dozen times over the years, almost always from white, blue-collar
> speakers. Virtually every time the intended sense was clearly that
> of 1508. The single exception I can recall was one of my high-
> school English teachers, who once used it in the 1864 sense.
>
> Etymologically, "whoremonger" should also = "pimp," but OED finds
> no exx.
>
> JL
>
> Sarah Lang wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Sarah Lang
> Subject: whoremaster/whore-master
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> In John Turturro's (excellent) film _Romance & Cigarettes_ (2005,
> only now being distributed), the word whoremaster (whore-master) is
> used repeatedly to describe & name the central father figure (as well
> as "his father and his father before him").
>
> The interesting part is that Turturro uses it not to describe a pimp,
> etc., but simply a husband who cheats on his wife. (The woman he
> cheats with appears to fall in love with him and he "almost" loves
> her.)
>
> Other instances of this use?
>
> Thanks,
> S.
>
>
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